Deng Zhongxia: A famous leader of the Chinese workers' movement

"The five ridges are full of thin waves, and the mud pills are walking in the mud." Most of the Qitianling, one of the "Five Ridges" in Chairman Mao Zedong's poem, is located in Yizhang County, at the southern tip of Hunan Province, and the town of Wuling in the north of the county seat is also named after it. In Wuling Township, there is a small village called Deng Jia Wan, which is the hometown of Deng Zhongxia, a famous leader of the Chinese workers' movement.

Come to Deng Jiawan Village, follow a section of bluestone steps, and arrive at the former residence of Deng Zhongxia. This is a green brick tile house in the style of Shonan residential, the door of the former residence hangs the plaque of "Deng Zhongxia's Former Residence", entering the hall, the graphic introduction of Deng Zhongxia's life, it is easy to pull the visitor's thoughts back to the revolutionary years of burning passion.

Deng Zhongxia, born in October 1894, is a native of Yizhang, Hunan. In 1914, he was admitted to Hunan Higher Normal School, and in 1917, he was admitted to the Department of Chinese of Peking University, and then transferred to the Department of Philosophy. In 1919, he participated in the May Fourth Movement, served as the general affairs officer of the Beijing Students' Federation, and participated in the burning of Zhao Jialou. In March 1920, under the leadership of Li Dazhao, Deng Zhongxia, Gao Junyu and others initiated the organization of the Marxist Theory Research Society of Peking University. In October of the same year, with members of the Marx Theory Research Association as the backbone, he initiated and organized the early organization of the Communist Party in Beijing, with Li Dazhao as the secretary, and Deng Zhongxia became one of the earliest members of the Communist Party of China.

From April 1920, Deng Zhongxia was engaged in the workers' movement in Changxindian, Beijing for a long time, hosting a workers' labor remedial school, establishing a trade union, and cultivating a large number of backbone forces for the northern workers' movement. On May 1, 1922, as a representative of the workers of Changxindian, he attended the First National Labor Congress held in Guangzhou and was elected as the director of the Secretariat of the Chinese Labor Union. In July of the same year, he attended the Second National Congress of the Party, participated in the formulation of the Declaration of the Second National Congress and the Party's Program for the Democratic Revolution, and was elected as a member of the Central Committee. Soon after, he was elected as a member and chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Socialist Youth League, and participated in the founding of the magazine "China Youth". In 1923, he was recommended by Li Dazhao to join the founding of Shanghai University, a joint venture between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and served as general manager. After the establishment of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions in 1925, he served as secretary general and propaganda minister, stayed in Guangzhou to work, and soon participated in the organization and leadership of the famous provincial and Hong Kong strikes.

At the critical juncture of the defeat of the Great Revolution, he resolutely advocated an armed uprising in Nanchang, and was dispatched by the central authorities to Jiujiang to hold meetings with Li Lisan, Tan Pingshan, Ye Ting, Nie Rongzhen, and others to analyze the situation and make suggestions. Subsequently, he participated in the Eighty-Seventh Session of the Party, resolutely supported the policy of carrying out the agrarian revolution and armed uprising set by the meeting, and was elected as an alternate member of the Provisional Politburo of the Central Committee. In March 1928, he went to Moscow to attend the Fourth Congress of the Red Workers' International and served as the representative of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions in the Red Workers' International.

In July 1930, Deng Zhongxia returned to Shanghai from Moscow. Soon after, the Central Committee appointed him as a representative of the Central Committee to the base area in western Xiang'e, where he served as secretary of the Xiang'e-Exi Special Committee, political commissar of the Second Red Army (later renamed the Red Third Army), secretary of the Committee of Former Enemies, and member of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, and together with He Long and Zhou Yiqun, led the armed struggle in western Xiang'e. In 1932, he was transferred back to Shanghai to persist in the secret struggle, and served as the director of the National Red Mutual Aid Association and the secretary of the party group.

In May 1933, Deng Zhongxia was arrested while working in Shanghai and was immediately confessed by traitors. After hearing the news, Chiang Kai-shek personally interrogated him and ordered that Deng Zhongxia be immediately taken to the prison of the Kuomintang Gendarmerie Headquarters in Nanjing. In prison, with the firm conviction and iron will of a Communist Party member, he withstood the temptation of the enemy's money and heavy lure and the destruction of severe torture. He said to the person in charge of the underground party branch in prison: "Please tell everyone that the bones of Deng Zhongxia were burned to ashes, and Deng Zhongxia was still a member of the Communist Party. ”

On September 21, 1933, at the Yuhuatai Execution Ground in Nanjing, Deng Zhongxia shouted "Down with the Kuomintang reactionaries!" "Long live the Chinese Communist Party!" "The proletariat of the whole world unites!" The slogan was heroic and righteous, and he was 39 years old at the time.

Although the martyr Deng Zhongxia is gone, the party and the people have not forgotten him. Today, in the Zhongxia Park located in Yizhang County, the bronze statue of Deng Zhongxia stands in it, looking into the distance, and Dengjiawan, more than ten kilometers away from the bronze statue, is a new look, spacious highways, clean laneways, and shining solar street lights... The tourists who came to pay their respects were not only deeply moved by Deng Zhongxia's revolutionary deeds, but also praised the development and changes of Deng Zhongxia's hometown.

(Xinhua News Agency reporter Chen Wenguang)